From: Blunderov (squooker@mweb.co.za)
Date: Wed Oct 22 2003 - 02:16:25 MDT
rhinoceros
> Sent: 22 October 2003 0233
> Here is an article starting with an old sin of Pinker's youth. Besides
> this catchy bit, the article is interesting. It is the second of two
> articles by Harold Fromm about what evolution has to say about
culture.
> Maybe "Nature or Narture" is not such an "orthogonal" distinction
after
> all...
>
> Full PDFs of the two articles on "The New Darwinism in the Humanities"
are
> available here:
>
> From Plato to Pinker
> http://www.hudsonreview.com/frommSp03.pdf
>
> Back to Nature, Again
> http://www.hudsonreview.com/frommSu03.pdf
>
>
> The New Darwinism in the Humanities
> Part II: Back to Nature, Again
> Harold Fromm
>
> Between the year 1997, when "How the Mind Works" was published, and
2002,
> the year of "The Blank Slate", Steven Pinker's treatment of art seems
to
> have undergone a certain amount of refinement. In 1997, far from
seeing
> the arts as "adaptive," in the Darwinian sense of conducive to fitness
for
> survival and reproduction, Pinker described music and fiction as
> "cheesecake" for the mind that provided a sensual thrill like the feel
of
> fat and sugar on the taste buds. With a view such as this, there
wasn't
> much difference between the psychological impact of Bach's "St.
Matthew
> Passion" and pornography off the Web. Pinker made things even worse by
> adding, "Compared with language, vision, social reasoning, and
physical
> know-how, music could vanish from our species and the rest of our
> lifestyle would be virtually unchanged. Music appears to be a pure
> pleasure technology, a cocktail of recreational drugs that we ingest
> through the ear to stimulate a mass of pleasure circuits at once." !
> Whether the passage of time has caused him to reconsider or whether
harsh
> critics such as Joseph Carroll 1 have had a chastening effect, by the
time
> of "The Blank Slate", Pinker remarks,
>
> "Whether art is an adaptation or a by-product or a mixture of the two,
it
> is deeply rooted in our mental faculties." In other words, our
response to
> art is a component of human nature and, even if he still considers it
a
> pleasure-technology or a status-seeking feat, Pinker now seems to see
it
> as more deeply connected with being human. "Organisms get pleasure
from
> things that promoted the fitness of their ancestors," he writes, and
he
> mentions food, sex, children, and know-how as well as visual and
auditory
> pleasure. Not quite "adaptive" but serious nonetheless. If he has not
> already done so, I figure it is only a matter of time before he
abandons
> the implausible view that nobody would profoundly miss music if it
were
> simply to disappear. The number of totally music-insensitive people I
have
> met during a lifetime would not use up the fingers of one hand.
>
> <snip>
[Blunderov]
Perhaps the following point has been overlooked?
<q>
Ancient art has a specific inner content. At one time, art possessed the
same purpose that books do in our day, namely; to preserve and transmit
knowledge. In olden times people did not write books, they incorporated
their knowledge into works of art. We would find a great many ideas in
the works of ancient art passed down to us, if only we knew how to read
them.</q>
G.Gurdjieff
Now think of Neolithic cave art in this, so to speak, light!
Best Regards
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